- Paramount mounts proxy fight against WBD amid takeover battle
Source: Axios
“After numerous bid rejections, Paramount Skydance is officially waging a proxy fight against Warner Bros. Discovery’s board. Paramount has refused to increase the price of its offer for WBD, arguing its bid is financially superior to Netflix’s. It’s now become clear that it believes its best path to winning WBD is through legal pressure. Paramount on Monday sent a letter to WBD shareholders saying it intends to nominate directors for WBD’s board and that it filed a lawsuit to force the company to disclose ‘basic information” about the bidding process to enable shareholders to “to make an informed decision as to whether to tender their shares into our offer.'” (01/12/26)
- A royal Paine
Source: Expression
by Matthew Harwood“Accounts differ, but sometime between late November and the middle of December 1774, a terribly sick man was carried off a ship in colonial Philadelphia. Riddled with typhus, the middle-aged Brit was too weak to walk after his long voyage from London. …. If the British had any idea of who this Thomas Pain would become — he wouldn’t add the ‘e’ until later — they may never have let him set sail to the New World to begin with. In little more than a year, this impoverished 37-year-old, who had known only heartache and failure in Britain, would find his voice as a successful editor and journalist in America’s largest city. And with his newfound purpose and confidence, he would write one of the great world-changing pieces of political propaganda ever published and help birth a free and independent United States of America.” (01/12/26)
- Libertarian Aspirations
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance“Although it may have been true at one time that libertarians and conservatives were ‘uneasy cousins,’ such has not been the case for many years. Still, conservatives have no problem with using libertarian rhetoric to portray themselves as advocates of the Constitution, private property, the free market, individual liberty, federalism, limited government, and a free society when they only selectively believe these things.” (01/12/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/libertarian-aspirations/
- In Times Like This, Reframe American History
Source: JFK Facts
by Jefferson Morley“I was taught to understand American history as the history of political institutions, how ideas of individual liberty, free speech, separation of powers, and rule of law were manifested and contested. At a time when such institutions and ideas are powerless, endangered or defunct, we might find more clarity — and power — by understanding American history as a narrative of extra-constitutional political violence. If, as Judge Andrew Napolitano says, we now live under ‘a lawless presidency,’ it’s not the first time.” (01/12/26)
https://jfkfacts.substack.com/p/in-times-like-this-reframe-american
- Not All Predictions Are Impossible
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux“Why don’t economics—the analysis of the social consequences of individual actions—and a knowledge of initial conditions suffice to make predictions? There are many reasons. Initial conditions cannot all be perfectly measured and are continuously disturbed, which generates divergent trajectories and creates new surprises as time goes on. Preferences (tastes and values) dwell in the head of each individual. Moral character may be opaque. Thanks to the law of large numbers, the average behavior of a group of individuals may be predictable (consider the law of demand: quantity demanded is an inverse function of price), but the actions of a specific individual are not. The longer the prediction horizon, the more fog in the oracle’s crystal ball. Not surprisingly, my own predictions have not all been glorious.” (01/12/26)
https://pierrelemieux.substack.com/p/not-all-predictions-are-impossible
- Absolute Immunity
Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon“Alignment with supremacy is a vile choice. Raising the natural costs for those who make that choice by putting first things first.” (01/12/26)
- Thoughts on Balko’s Nightmare Happening
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Daniel Shapiro“Radley Balko’s article ‘Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here,’ may very well be the best article on Trump’s immigration policy. … We have four basic choices, as far as I can tell. #1: You can support these policies. If you do, I don’t see how you can call yourself a libertarian, a liberal, or anybody of any ideology — including conservatism — who claims to love liberty or support the ideals of the American Revolution. #2: You can oppose them but engage in what I call DTS — Downplaying Trump Syndrome. … #3: You can stick your head in the sand and not want to read about it or talk about it or be concerned with it. … #4: You can do something about it.” (01/12/26)
https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-balkos-nightmare-happening
- Trump will be sore when Cuba domino refuses to fall
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by William LeoGrande“Back in 2014, economist Pavel Vidal estimated that if Venezuelan oil were suddenly cut off, the Cuban economy would drop 7.7 percent. Today, when Venezuela provides far less than it did then and the price of oil is about half of what it was, the impact would be less. But Cuba’s GDP has already fallen about 15 percent since the COVID pandemic. Another 4 or 5 percent drop would exacerbate the vicious circle of declines in domestic production reducing export earnings, and widening the gap between what Cuba needs to import and what it can afford. Would that be enough to collapse the Cuban government? Trump certainly seems to think so. … Such confidence is not new. Washington officials have been predicting the imminent end of the Cuban government since 1959.” (01/12/26)
- Where Law Would Be King
Source: Law & Liberty
by Hans Eicholz“There are moments within traditions of thought when the pressure of events breaks apart ideas and ways of thinking that had subsisted for ages in relative harmony. These moments, often called tipping points, mark an instant when a particular notion suddenly takes prominence in public opinion due to its seeming conformity with the logic of events. Such was the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, announced for sale by Robert Bell’s print shop in Philadelphia on January 9 and officially distributed on January 10, 250 years ago. Until that time, debate over the question of colonial rights to self-government, especially over the question of taxation, had been carried on within the framework and terms of the British or Imperial constitution.” (01/12/26)
- For Greenland, partnership over pugnacity
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“In the midst of the Arctic winter, residents of Greenland are feeling the heat of global geopolitics. United States officials have stepped up insistence on the ‘need’ to take control of the mostly ice-covered island by force or by financial means. The declarations stress Greenland’s strategic location along Arctic sea routes – which both Russia and China are vying to use – as well as access to its estimated 1.5 million tons of rare earth mineral reserves. What’s at stake ‘is not just about rare earths – it is about the very idea of sovereignty in an age of resource rivalry’, Phar Kim Beng, of the Institute of International and ASEAN Studies, wrote in the Malay Mail. The U.S. logic is ‘rooted in energy security, future-proofing supply chains (especially minerals) and in the strategic denial of competitors,’ geopolitics analyst and bestselling author Tim Marshall wrote in The Times of London.” (01/12/25)
- Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 150
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“Zaprudering ICE After The Renee Good Shooting.” (01/12/26)
- Reason Roundtable, 01/12/26
Source: Reason
“End the Fed? Or Turn It Over to Trump?” (01/12/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/01/12/end-the-fed-or-turn-it-over-to-trump/